Saturday, October 20, 2012

15th century game with new rules

Had a Dux Britanniarum game earlier, English vs French in Gascony as a test for all these rules we've been developing. Its a raid on a merchant's house, with the French attacking. Forces are taken from Jim's recent post.

The game went well for the English, who first saw off a mounted charge with their men at arms in close ranks (in the end they took 12 points of shock but no kills) and the captain led the soldier archers to first fire into the French horses, then mount up and charge in. Admitedly one group gone hammered by a counter attack by 3 men at arms, who played a Crouch lances! card, giving them a +1 to hit. One archer remained who quickly left the table so the force morale ddin't take a hit.

The militia archers, Gascons in this game, performed well, shooting away the French handgunners and advancing to cut off the line of retreat. The French crossbowmen did manage to kill a good number of them, but they died when they mounted, charged some mounted archers and were quickly cut down.

One group did manage to escpae with some loot, but the other could not find any and in the end ran away empty handed. By then most of the French force was streaming away from the field to safety.

So, how did the rule changes change the game?

I like that men can mount and dismount during the game. I never thought of this as i have no mounted figures for my archers, but i got round this by using 40mm bases and placed them on them when mounted. They arn't really riding horses, but i mobilised my imagination. I also changed one card; i swapped the English Crouch lances! for Hellequins, allowing mounted archers to shoot (normally they can only fire on foot). The name and idea was given to me by Jim over at the Lead adventure forum.

Having armies mostly of horses and archers certainly makes the game different from Saxons and Vikings (or British), but i think it works. Sure, there are more archers, so perhaps less hack and slash, but heck i like it. Having lots of men on horses made the game quite mobile near the end, when men were mounting up to run or pursue, the militia archers suffered at this stage as they were ploding around on foot.

All in all, fun, No pictures i'm afraid as my sisters have gone to Paris and have taken the camera, so no pics until wednesday.